music art film review - REDEFINE magazine » religion

Barn Owl Band Interview: A Bilateral Reflection On Meditative States

Jason Simpson — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:35:00 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Barn Owl Band Interview: A Bilateral Reflection On Meditative States

In Hinduism, there is a term called Shaktipat, in which a guru transmits enlightenment by their very presence. Considering the places that some of us here at REDEFINE Magazine have voyaged to while listening to the music of Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti, solo musicians who are also collectively known as Barn Owl, we decided to harangue the duo with a bunch of questions about meditation, to see how much they had seen in such altered spaces.

Barn Owl’s music seems custom-made for the sweat lodge or meditation hall. As you listen to an amalgam of tribal percussion, temple bells, cosmic synths, and rustic American transcendentalism, you can practically smell the sweet sage burning. Their music knows no bounds, and as such, is a ritual that everybody can take part in.

As increasing amounts of people and culture make demands on our time and attention, the ability to find a quiet, sacred space becomes essential. Barn Owl’s portable ashram is a precious resource — you can strap on a pair of headphones and find some space on a crowded train or a busy street to reflect. They encourage us to slow down, and find a little peace.

Barn Owl’s latest full-length album, V, is out now on Thrill Jockey Records.
PURCHASE BARN OWL’s V ON AMAZON

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANTHONY MASTERS; ABOVE ARTWORK BY EMILY FRASER

Jon Porras

“Into Midnight” from Black Mesa

Evan Caminiti

“Fading Dawn” from Dreamless Sleep

Barn Owl

“Void Redux” from V

Barn Owl’s music has a way of slowing down attention, slowing down one’s perception of time. Meditation produces a similar result. What are your intentions with putting music out into the world? Are they aligned with such qualities?

Jon Porras: Especially in the Bay Area, I feel myself trying to slow down in the wake of a fast paced, technology-based culture. Maybe this desire to slow down comes out subconsciously in our work. We’ve always gravitated toward music that builds slowly and thoughtfully, and I believe it can be powerful to feel big impact from subtle shifts in tone, volume and texture.

Evan Caminiti: I approach music less conceptually than I once did and rely more on intuition and daily practice, embracing the strong moments of improvisation rather than trying over and over again to execute an idea based on concepts that don’t resonate viscerally. Having a specific vision and knowing what we want to hear is crucial; I would say we always make the kind of music we would to listen to. I think slow music, deep music that taps into something beyond just entertainment, music that engages your body and mind in an all encompassing way — that is really valuable and crucial. Personally, it is a major part of my well-being, and I hope through releasing music that it does the same for others. I find it to have a grounding effect, both energizing and calming.

Related Concept: Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening Philosophy

In 1991, musican Pauline Oliveros coined the term “Deep Listening” in conjunction with her musical group, The Deep Listening Band, as well as her Deep Listening program. Oliveros describes Deep Listening as “listening in every possible way to everything possible to hear no matter what one is doing.” According to the Deep Listening Institute’s website, it is the exploration of “the difference between the involuntary nature of hearing and the voluntary, selective nature – exclusive and inclusive — of listening. The practice includes bodywork, sonic meditations, interactive performance, listening to the sounds of daily life, nature, one’s own thoughts, imagination and dreams, and listening to listening itself. It cultivates a heightened awareness of the sonic environment, both external and internal, and promotes experimentation, improvisation, collaboration, playfulness and other creative skills vital to personal and community growth.”¹

The Deep Listening Band specializes in performing and recording in resonant and reverberant spaces, such as caves and cathedrals — most famously, underground cisterns, including the 2-million-US-gallon (7,600 m3) Fort Worden Cistern which has a 45 second reverberation time.² The Deep Listening program consists of annual listening retreats in Europe and N. America, as well as workships, certification programs, and trainings.³

Barn Owl Band Interview (cont’d)

What does meditation mean to you, and when did you first encounter the idea? Do meditative states influence the creation or consumption of your music?

Jon Porras: Over the years, we’ve developed performance habits that involve mindfulness and deep concentration. I’m not sure this could be considered meditation by definition, but we rely on deep concentration and intuition to guide our live and recorded performances. I would associate this more with Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening philosophy. I’ve read that some people see a difference between deep, focused performance and the act of deliberate meditation — so it may be important to make that distinction.

Meditative states absolutely influence our music. As a performer, I try to find that balance between losing myself in the music and being completely self-aware. It’s during these moments where I can experience a deeper quality of sound. There is a cathartic release involved, but it is balanced with intense focus.

Evan Caminiti: For me, music comes first and the meditative benefits are one part of it. Long duration music really introduced me to meditation in some strange form. Raga, especially the slowly shifting styles of Dhrupad and Pandit Pran Nath, and the music of La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, Terry Riley, and Pauline Oliveros, were important in that they allowed me to literally hear musically differently. Before getting into all of these artists, I experienced the powerful live sets of Sunn O))) and Om, which primed me for the transcendental philosophies these [other] artists have explored for decades.

Meditation produces a slippery sense of self, when you cease to identify your thoughts. Can you speak about the self and how it effects your creativity?

Evan Caminiti: The ability to dissolve the ego and allow performers and audience alike to slip into a trance state is one of the most amazing and rewarding things about music. It’s the moments where we’re open where we can leave the self behind and become fully absorbed with the music; there we can become part of the continuum of inspiration and influence.

There are some studies about the ability to induce deep trance states (theta and delta states) by listening to tones (binaural beats). Theta states are also brought on by simple, repetitive tasks, and these states are attributed by artists and scientists as responsible for inspiration and clear insight. What are some things you do to clear your mind and allow for inspiration to occur?

Jon Porras: I completely agree with these theories, but connect with them on an intuitive level. The ability for music and tones to influence perception is a major factor in what keeps me interested in exploring sound. Repetition and extended tones have an elevating effect, a lulling quality that can induce trace-like states. Some people call it “zoning out” but I feel that when you’re in this state, there is a pathway to the subconscious that isn’t normally open. Some would argue that it is not the subconscious you become aware of; it’s a higher conscious. It certainly feels that way sometimes.

As far as work habits, I try to spend time in my home studio everyday — I guess this is also a repetitive task. It’s grounding for me to spend a few hours plugging away, experimenting with sounds, filters, effect chains. Not always, but there are those moments of clarity when things seem to align perfectly and you come away with a new sound.

Evan Caminiti: Having a comfortable environment at home is really helpful in creating the right environment for inspiration and insight. Surrounding myself with positive influences and creating an altar-like space in my home studio is essential.

BARN OWL INTERVIEW CONTINUES BELOW

Listening Station: Barn Owl Through The Years

Meditation emphasizes letting things arise, and letting thing go, without clutching or attachment. I have always found improvised music very similar to this. How do you compare the process of recording, versus just playing music in the moment?

Jon Porras: Recording involves a balance between letting go while being focused in the moment. These seem like opposite modes, but it’s possible to be fluid and intuitive in your playing while following a distinct trajectory. It’s about finding that flow when technical skill and deep focus facilitate that potential for discovery.

Evan Caminiti: Improvisation and recording are inseparable. I was talking to a friend the other night. He brought up a quote; I think it was something Mark Hollis said. It went something like, “The first time you play something it is at its peak.” That philosophy makes a lot of sense to me because I’ve found over the years that improvisations and first takes can possess this vital essence driven by pure expression which is impossible to attain when something that is contrived. The catch is knowing how to improvise without wanking or noodling and knowing how to edit improvised recordings down to the essential parts. Furthermore, not being afraid to edit the recordings and shape them into something new. This approach where improvisation, composition, and production are equal is really exciting to me.

Hardcore practitioners of meditation often advocate material renunciation. What is your take on creature comforts versus ascetic living? Materialism is to a degree necessary in the music industry; how, if at all, does that dialogue affect your creative process?

Jon Porras: It’s tough because I find myself constantly seeking that creative spark. Sometimes it can come from hearing a piece of music, but it can also come from getting a new piece of gear. Music can operate without material completely — just open your mouth and sing a note — but machines are great tools and some would argue are extensions of the creative process. So I find myself oscillating between feeling strange about how much money I spend on gear, and feeling confident in accumulating these tools. It’s important to remind myself that high-end, sophisticated gear will not make better music. It comes down to how you implement the gear. At times, it can be more interesting to carve new directions using old tools in different ways.

Evan Caminiti: I’ve been spending a lot of time lately with my modular synthesizer. I get endless hours of joy and inspiration out of the synth; it’s also essential in a practical way as a working musician, so yeah materialism is necessary. Like collecting records, there is no substitute for vinyl, but they take up a lot of space. We all have our creature comforts but I keep things really minimal; my small apartment certainly helps with that. As far as effecting the creative process, I look at the limitations of a small space and the fact that I can’t afford a really elaborate setup as a good thing. There was an interesting piece by Mark Fell in a recent issue of the Wire that discusses how limitations lead to innovation. The less you have, the more you’ll get out of what you’re working with and it can produce unique and personal results.

You recently played at the SF Zen Center. Can you describe how this came about and what the experience was like? Have you and do you wish to do more things like this in the future?

Jon Porras: This was a very memorable show. I’d love to do more like it in the future.

Evan Caminiti: This experience was thanks to Jennifer Mearz, a writer for the Bold Italic here in SF. The experience was great, totally unique. One of the most amazing things was reading the blog of one of the Zen Center’s residents, who happens to be deaf. In detail, this individual described the physical sensations of our set, the way vibrations moved from the heart to the belly, all over. It sounded like a very multi-dimensional experience. The physical aspects of our music is a key element, something people may miss out on if only listening at home and not coming out to shows. That being said, the PA we used that night was actually very small so we weren’t half as loud as we like to be. So yes, doing more things like this in the future would be great, but we would want to make sure the PA is powerful enough so we can give everyone the best experience possible. Good sound systems are becoming increasingly important to us now that we’re playing so many electronics live; we’ve really wreaked havoc on some inadequate systems.

Your latest record is much more electronic than your previous outputs. How did this shift come about? Do you think that the shift between analog versus digital changes the meditative atmosphere at all?

Jon Porras: We’ve always pushed ourselves to find new sounds and new ways of expanding the project. After touring Europe, I was fascinated to see how embedded electronic music was into pop culture. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with being from the west coast, but I grew up with an ambivalent perspective on electronic music. Being exposed to it later in life was revelatory; I guess I wasn’t ready for it before. It helped to have a friend deep into electronics; I think his sensibilities sort of rubbed off.

Also, synthesizers can occupy a larger frequency range, so our live sets have been more dense since incorporating electronics. Synthesis allows for optimal sound design. You start with an oscillator and build from there, making artistic judgments along the way until you reach that perfect sound.

Evan Caminiti: We’ve always used both analog and digital instruments. There are more digital elements on this record, but you know, almost all the synths were analog, we used a bunch of tube amps; there is just no substitute for these things. This shift came about because of the desire to expand our techniques and try new things. We just weren’t inspired to create a record structured around the guitar as the primary instrument. We’ve made a lot of albums that took that approach already. We have always been drawn to a hands on approach so we gravitated towards synthesizers that allow the user to sculpt the sound from the ground up. Your options open exponentially when you move from the setup of guitar, pedals, amplifier, on to synthesizers — massive octave range, full control over the stereo field, a vast array of timbres… it goes on. I love guitars, but it’s refreshing and inspiring to work with something so open; it’s like a blank slate.

Do you have particular records that you use as a tool for getting into a meditative zone? Are there any positive or negative experiences of note stemming from meditative states in your life?

Jon Porras: Pandit Pran Nath’s Earth Groove is a great album to help cleanse the palate.

Evan Caminiti: I listen to Alice Coltrane’s devotional tapes pretty often, and in situations like being a plane, where I’m feeling on edge, those songs have an amazing calming and empowering effect. On the opposite side of things, I’ve certainly been in situations where I get on the bus after a long improv session or a deep listening [session] and I’m just not ready to deal with all the chaos of the day-to-day BS after been in such a deep zone. It’s like crossing a barrier and you then have to re-acclimate to the outside world.

Listening Station: Meditative Inspiration

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Barn Owl Band Interview: A Bilateral Reflection On Meditative States

Midday Veil – Great Cold of the Night Music Video (w/ Director & Musician Interviews)

Vivian Hua — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:49:57 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Midday Veil – Great Cold of the Night Music Video (w/ Director & Musician Interviews)

Though they have long been manufacturing their own visual aesthetic, Seattle’s Midday Veil recently enlisted the help of director Steven Miller and cinematographer Ian Lucero for their newest music video for “Great Cold of the Night”. The final product is a dizzying take on spiritual death and rebirth, made possible by zombie-like witches and their “cannibalism” of a carefully-sculpted red velvet cake.

Midday Veil’s Emily Pothast and director Steven Miller take turns to offer their commentaries in the Q&A interview below, followed by a stream of the music video itself.

“The basic concept has been sort of developing for years, due to our interest in mythology, especially ancient mystery religions that involve sacrificing or dismembering a god/hero and taking him into the underworld in order to give him a secret awareness of the processes of death and resurrection.” - Emily Pothast

Responses from Emily Pothast of Midday Veil and Director Steven Miller

On The Technical &
Artistic Side Of Things

Q&A by Vivian Hua

Looking on Steven’s website shows that a lot of his photography involves heaps upon heaps of human bodies creating a tangled mess of chaos. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Steven’s visual habits or the sexual heap of a narrative? How did the collaboration first form?

EP: Well, as the discussion of the concept got more ambitious, we realized that this was turning into something we weren’t really equipped to try to direct or shoot on our own, especially since we were going to be performing in it, so I contacted Steven because I know his aesthetic and I thought it would be a great fit for the concept. I also knew that he has worked on lots of collaborative projects in the past, and that he had a lot of the skills, gear, and contacts that could help us take this thing from the realm of fantasy into reality.

I’m so thankful that we got in touch with Steven. We gave him the very basic sketch of an idea and he developed it into a storyboard, really fleshing out the idea (sorry) into a complex narrative. He also brought Ian Lucero on board as Director of Photography, which was huge. Ian is a video genius.

SM: When Emily asked if I wanted to direct a music video, I thought, “Of course! This is what I’ve been waiting for.” I’d only made two short films before but I knew I could make a [music video] because so many of my photos are so involved. I asked Ian Lucero in Portland to shoot the video because I didn’t want to direct this huge affair but film it completely wrong. We were perfect for each other, informing one another about lighting and camera angles and pacing. I think Emily and David knew that I could get a group of strangers to molest each other and make it look visually interesting; I’m guessing that’s why they hired me.

Was it always planned that the music video would be a merging of narrative footage and live concert footage, or was that something that evolved as the filming went along? What do you feel were the benefits to including both?

SM: Yes, it was always planned that way. I really wanted to fuck with the tropes of music videos. So often a video shows a band looking cool and rocking out with cuts to a completely different narrative that has nothing to do with what’s going on with the band. But what happens if the audience turns on the band? When the narratives collide? The look on David’s face when Amanda [Manitach] moves out of the audience and into his space is perfect. He’s annoyed, and it’s funny. It’s also the turning point; what starts as a standard video quickly mutates into a horror story. I did love the irony of having the band pretend like this was no big deal. They keep playing hard while their keyboard player is chased out of the building and then later consumed.

In Midday Veil’s previous music videos, processing and live manipulated footage had quite the presence. Some of my favorite parts of this music video involve the merging of those graphics with live footage, particularly when David falls down the rabbit hole. Was there a sense of needing to preserve a bit of your previous aesthetics? What did the workflow for post-production look like?

SM: I watched the videos Midday Veil had produced before and knew I wanted to maintain some of that analog video synth aesthetic. It fits the music well, and I knew I could use it as a story element. At the beginning of the story, the video processing was a visual symbol for the effect of the ritual – what the witches brought into being became a glitch in reality. Then, as David goes down the rabbit hole, the processing floodgates opened wide. The David cake acted as soma; the ingestion of it produces wild flashes of color and echoes of past and present. Each bite brings on more and more psychedelic nuances until the audience seemingly dances into a frenzy for all eternity.

As for post-production, first I had to learn [Adobe] Premiere and After Effects because I’d never made a video before! After a couple of lessons from my pal Reilly and endless hours of editing, I had a rough cut to show my co-editor Ian Lucero. He liked it! Then we shot more: Emily’s solo shots in my apartment with the smoke machine that brought the fire department, David falling through space on my dining room table, cake close ups and the skull footage. Finally, with all of this we made the fifth rough cut that had 80% of the edits in place. This is where David ran the entire video through his video synth to get effects footage. Ian also recorded the whole thing to VHS, which became another effects layer. Then Ian and I spent a good 100 hours over five days to finish it.

On The Spiritual &
Conceptual Side of Things

Q&A by Thad McKraken

Your new video basically involves keyboardist David Golightly being buried alive by a coven of witches as a sacrifice to some creepy daemonic super witch entity so the rest of Midday Veil can rock out that much harder or something like that. Where did this concept come from, and how does David feel about all this high strangeness (and the inherent awesomeness of gold lamé underwear)?

EP: Haha! I guess you could say that the basic concept has been sort of developing for years, due to our interest in mythology, especially ancient mystery religions that involve sacrificing or dismembering a god/hero and taking him into the underworld in order to give him a secret awareness of the processes of death and resurrection.

The first spark of the idea for the video actually came to us last spring while David and I were hiking at Moran State Park on Orcas Island. There are some stone structures out there that were built by the WPA in the 1930s, and they really look like they should be used to have a rock show that culminates in a human sacrifice. Weird dungeon/picnic pavilion vibes. As the concept developed, it ended up making more sense to use Seattle locations, but we did spend the better part of a day brainstorming after stumbling onto those structures.

A few weeks later we were at brunch with a Seattle artist named Amanda Manitach (who appears in the video as one of the women in white slips, whom we called “maenads” during production). We started telling her about our idea, and the cake orgy just sort of emerged during the conversation. Some of Amanda’s work involves the eroticized use of messy food, and that was definitely an inspiration in the early stages. At least… a cake orgy at a rock show seemed like a logical project for us to work on together!

As far as the golden shorts go, David is an excellent sport. Also, he looks great in them, so there’s that.

SM: I heard Emily and Amanda’s idea for a cake sacrifice, then found out the song is over 11-minutes-long and knew that there had to be more involved in the story. At that first meeting, I had the idea to bring in a coven of witches to call in the dark goddess and instigate the maenads into action. As for the burying alive — a friend did an O.T.O. ritual years ago where she was symbolically buried and sequestered from all humans for a month before being reborn into the world. I really liked that idea but wanted to make it literal, since I knew it would be disturbing to see. I’d been wanting to create that visual ever since I asked Canadian band Les Jupes if they’d do it for a band photo years ago. They said no, but David didn’t mind at all! From there, I wrote a script that is basically the video as you see it.

I found the concept particularly fascinating, because one of the themes that has been interpenetrating my psychic life as of late has been that of female energy consuming and feeding off the masculine — as if the previous era of humanity has shifted and now it’s time for the sacred feminine to devour the dark war mongering energy that “mankind” has created. Terence Mckenna, Whitley Strieber, and others have described encountering entities that have an almost insectile-multi-eyed-telepathic-hive-mind characteristics. I don’t know if you’re up on insect sexuality, but the feminine typically reigns supreme in that micro-verse. There are no King Bees, if you catch my drift. Thoughts?

EP: Oh wow. Well, I mentioned the inspiration of mystery religions, myths that explore the inner workings of sex and death, which definitely relate to the core processes of nature. These myths are at the root of Christianity, but while the basic mechanism of the dying/resurrecting godman is alive and well in the character of Christ, the “feminine” and erotic aspects of the eternal that were also present in early versions of the myth have been considered taboo for most of Western history.

Elsewhere in the world, the Dark Devouring Mother is acknowledged in figures like Rangda or Kali, but in the west, the worship of the sacred feminine has been driven underground, where it has nevertheless persisted in the form of esoteric practice and witchcraft…

It’s interesting that you mention bees because there is such a close association between the symbolism of beehives, the Great Goddess, and witchcraft…

SM: I’ve encountered that insectile DMT universe, but I don’t think that was at play here. It wasn’t until I saw the video completed that I recognized what I was trying to invoke. A coven of witches create a ritual that stir the women at the concert to unleash their subconscious desires to consume David AND call forth the Great Cold of the Night simultaneously: the ritual invokes both the id and superego of feminine energy. David gets buried and consumed, then reborn anew as the dark goddess’ consort. For me, the story isn’t so much about creating a matriarchy as a balancing of the energies. They walk off together hand-in-hand at the end of the story to symbolize that balancing. I’m guessing this story says more about my own subconscious; since I was a child, hermaphroditic angels have always been the enlightened beings in my dreams.

I’m interested in the cake, because it looks — and I imagine, feels — freaking amazing. Can you tell me about it in-depth, please? From all angles.

EP: Um, I thought about trying to make a cake myself for a second, but I quickly abandoned that idea and figured we’d probably have to find a professional cake decorator to make it as good as it needed to be with the limited time we had to work with. But then one night I was talking to our bandmate Timm’s girlfriend Marleigh Atherton about the idea, and she announced that while she had never made a shaped cake before in her life; she was super down to try!

There’s a store in north Seattle called Home Cake Decorating Supply Company; I accompanied Marleigh on a trip there to get everything she couldn’t find at the grocery store. Then she spent two full days at our house baking and sculpting it. The body was made of multiple red velvet sheet cakes, stacked with layers of cherry pie filling, then carved away to make the shape of a torso. The “skin” was made of fondant, which can be mixed with colors and rolled out into flat sheets for sculpting.

You only see it for a moment in the video, but it looked surprisingly realistic in person.

The face was actually not edible. I made that part, using caulk that resembles icing on a plastic mask to give it David’s features, and then Marleigh painted it to match the fondant. The hair and beard were built up around the face with more cake and then Marleigh applied brown and gold icing with shaped tips to give it just the right texture.

The other thing to note about the cake is that it was made from scratch and tasted amazing. Even though it was essentially a prop, Marleigh wanted it to taste good, which I think ended up being clutch as far as the overall enjoyment of the cake by the people who got to lick it off each other! All in all, it was a very lovingly crafted object, and I think it was really powerful that she made us such an incredible, detailed thing to be destroyed. Marleigh also appears in the video, as the maenad who first reaches into the chest of the cake to tear out the heart, and later mounts it, looking like the Whore of Babylon from Metropolis. So good.

The ending scenes are an obvious erotic mess, full of breasts, butts, and the eating of fake flesh. How much direction was given there? Was there much goading necessary, or did the free-for-all spiral into madness quite nicely by itself?

SM: I gave some direction about what would happen once the cake was presented because I knew we’d only have one shot of an unsullied cake. There was plenty of alcohol distributed at the show, so when it was time to freak out, people just went for it. I only stopped the action a couple times to give minor direction and mostly just shouted above the music when I wanted particular people to molest each other or mount the cake, or feed Emily. Basically I just encouraged people to go further, and they did! Meanwhile both Ian and I shot everything from different angles and tried to stay out of each other’s sight lines to double the available footage.

The last time I saw you guys live, I was mildly tripping on mushrooms. Emily handed me a maraca at the beginning of the set, which was a very tribal improv freak out thing. I got so into shaking that maraca that I actually gave myself a huge blister without even realizing it. I was somehow so wrapped up in the music that I completely blocked out the mounting pain. You could say it was a mild form of possession. With that in mind, do you see a lot of potentiality in the live musical experience as a means to create new ideas regarding spirituality and therefore spiritual ritual? Also, do you ever sit up at night thinking about the potential consequences of handing maracas to tripping people?

EP: I definitely think there’s a link between music performance and spiritual ritual, and while these might seem like new ideas given our very secular culture, I think it’s essentially as old as humanity. There is this book from the ’80s called The Death and Resurrection Show that is all about the performative nature of “shamanism” and its impact on the emergence of the performing arts. It’s almost cliché, since so many mediocre musicians like to imagine themselves as “shamans,” but there’s a reason we want to identify rockstars with that archetype. There’s a deep history there.

I’m sorry my shaker gave you a blister!

What is the underlying theme and concept behind your new album The Current? Is it kind of like tapping into the psychic grid connecting us all and finding your path — what Christians refer to as the Holy Spirit or what Vivian refers to as Intuitive Navigation? Or am I completely off track with that?

EP: You know, the concept of this album is a little more open-ended than some of the things we’ve done in the past. The first song on the album is called “The Current”, and it was written as a jam in the studio that I had to go back and write words for, which isn’t exactly the easiest way for me to work.

There is an artist in Seattle named Sharon Arnold who curates these box sets of art multiples with a written component, called LxWxH. A couple of years ago, she asked me to write something for one of the boxes, and I contributed an essay called “The Current”. At the time, I was trying to find a way to weave together the works of two visual artists whose work was very different from one another. I liked the image of the current because it is evocative of both the literal currents of natural processes and also the common thread that emerges within an artist’s work over time, as older works are given a new context when they enter into dialogue with new works, or even the way that versions of “self” or identity can be conceived of as snapshots along an invisible axis that winds through time.

Currents have no content of their own, but they help create the form of everything. So yeah, your idea about the Holy Spirit is probably not far from the mark! Of the six songs on this album, two, “Choreia” and “Remember Child”, are new versions of songs that appeared on our very first CD-Rs together as a band. The identity of those songs has changed widely since we first conceived of them, and those songs have seen us through a lot of changes. New band members have joined, and a couple of members have left, but there is still a continuity within the music. There’s a continuity with our videos, too, although the latest one obviously, uh, takes the cake. We’re actually about to issue a super limited, tour-only VHS compilation of all the videos that Midday Veil has produced over the past few years. It’s 56-minutes long, which is a lot of video! There are common threads there, too, especially the exploration of video feedback, which uses the inherent properties of video to generate emergent forms that seem to illuminate a hidden world of the forces of nature.

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Midday Veil – Great Cold of the Night Music Video (w/ Director & Musician Interviews)

Christopher Mir Makes Chicken Scratch Enticing.

Vivian Hua — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 22:16:40 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Christopher Mir Makes Chicken Scratch Enticing.

The childish use of color and scraggly linework of Hamden, Connecticut-based artist Christopher Mir are misleading; if these works strike you as digital MS Paint drawings made by a youngster, you’d be dead wrong. Herein lies the most well-rendered chicken scratch you’ve ever seen, set down with acrylic paints and enamel, and full of fascinating characters, unusual settings, and off-kilter subject matter.

In the full post, Mir offers some words about the inspiration behind a select number of pieces. Despite their simple and straight-forward presentations, Mir’s inspiration is often rooted in current events and older artistic works, as well as symbolic and esoteric knowledge.

(9 IMAGES TOTAL)

The Alchemist
“This is based on an image from a book called Alchemy and Mysticism. In the original work — from the 17th century I believe — the man in the foreground isn’t blue, but in the painting I wanted to make him into a Krishna figure or a water being. He’s there to water the trees and put out the fire. The entire image is open to interpretation, but in my mind, the symbol of the tree refers to our own feeling of being grounded — rooted within the body — or of being uprooted — lost in thought or egoistic delusion.”

Mir currently has a solo show at Benrimon Contemporary in NYC (514 West 24th Street, 2nd Floor) through February 23rd and another next month at TMproject in Geneva, Switzerland (2, rue des Vieux-Grenadiers).

Shaman

Snake Handler
“Some Southern Baptists use snake handling as part of their religious practice. My family on my mother’s side are Southern Baptists, and I like to work with images that relate to this aspect of my heritage. I also see this image in particular as a symbolic representation of male dominance and/or arrogance. The fact is that we are all female. Males are a mutant version of the female body template.”

Wedding Day
“This reminds me of Crazy Cloud (Ikkyu) who wrote a cycle of poems called “Skeletons” in which the world is populated with living skeletons. It is a profound meditation on impermanence and death. It is also not unlike the many “Death and the Maiden” images that Edvard Munch produced.”

Underwater Ali

Family of Trees

Miss Multiverse
“This painting is based on an Ellis Ruley painting. I was thinking about the Persephone myth as it relates to creativity. So in this case Persephone is a beauty queen with attendants. My reading of the myth: one needs a degree of innocence and childlike wonderment in order to make art that really connects with people and sustains itself.”

Just Between You and Me
“This is a painting of Kevin Richardson embracing a lion. Kevin is a South African animal behaviorist who has been accepted into a lion pride. I got the image as a screen capture from an Associated Press video on line. Coming to terms with our own animal nature — or how we are or are not a part of that nature — is a recurring theme for me.”

Not one of Mir’s works. :)

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Christopher Mir Makes Chicken Scratch Enticing.

Mystical & Spiritual Ideas in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Pitch

Vivian Hua — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 22:45:11 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Mystical & Spiritual Ideas in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Pitch

John Coltrane once said: “My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there’s no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am – my faith, my knowledge, my being.”

REDEFINE magazine is pitching “Mystical & Spiritual Ideas In Modern Music”, a SXSW 2013 panel that will explore how creation is influenced when musicians have strong foundations in the metaphysical. Artists will share how spiritual beliefs affect musical creation and its end goals, how it supports transformation on individual and cultural levels, what role rituals and symbols play in art, and how to balance intent and intuition in the artistic process.

If you support our panel concept, please view its full description and vote for it at http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/3484, between August 13th and August 31st, 2012.

To drum up support for this panel, we have also created an infographic of quotes from great musicians, writers, artists, scientists, and philosophers, to timeline how the connection between music and spirituality has changed through the years. Below the jump, you can see the full graphic, which features 32 influential creators ranging from Ludwig van Beethoven to James Joyce and Albert Einstein, John Cage to Joseph Campbell and Flying Lotus. SEE IT HERE .

Vote for Mysticism & Spirituality in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Download Hi-Res Infographic

Vote for Mysticism & Spirituality in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Download Hi-Res Infographic Explore all articles related to influential thinkers

Mysticism & Spirituality In Modern Music from redefinemagazine

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Mystical & Spiritual Ideas in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Pitch

I and I: A Collective Interview With Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, Tony Lowe & The Congos

Troy Micheau — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:00:30 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

I and I: A Collective Interview With Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, Tony Lowe & The Congos

At this moment, your mind is receiving stimuli that defines the space around you. Infinite waves of molecular interactions are coursing through your body, separating isness from notness, being from perception, object from space; determining the contours of your physical and mental limits while daring you to shatter them. Space is your space, the loop from your mind to subject and back. There is room for much confusion here due to latency — the time it takes to complete the loop — but there is also room for exploration, for realization, and for creation. How we fill the space is up to us. The opportunity a wonderful gift which can be made even more powerful when we share it with other people — when we bottle the loop so that others can trace its orbit. We do this through every creative act, and yet, some are more obvious than others. Architecture, for example, or sculpture, but what about words? What about music? There are sounds that define and create spaces that feel more real than those confirmed by visual or physical cues. These are the sounds that characterize the music of both Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, and The Congos. All three artists are prone to constructing material hallucinations from sonic vibrations.

And now, in 2012, we have Icon Give Thank, a record combining Sun Araw’s desert acid zones with The Congos’ Kingston temples into one heroic dose. Cameron Stallones of Sun Araw, Geddes Gengras, Ashanti Roy of The Congos, and director Tony Lowe all chime in on this interview, to offer a glimpse into the divergent cultural and creative worlds that intersected in the creation of a final record and short film product.

Sun Araw

“Crete” from Ancient Romans

M. Geddes Gengras

April 2012 Tour Set

The Congos

“Fisherman” From Heart Of The Congos

FRKWYS Vol. 9: ICON GIVE THANK by Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras & The Congos

“You talk about the mystic quality to [the record], and you go [to Jamaica], and that’s everywhere.” – M. Geddes Gengras

Ashanti Roy Of The Congos

Unfortunately, my interview with Ashanti Roy was recorded unintelligibly as there was some technical difficulty or other at work. I can tell you, however, that this interview did indeed happen, that I will recount it, and that it is completely in keeping with the rest of the processes by which this record was made that Ashanti and co. would be involved in a personal and candid exchange only to have it pieced together and retold by a young white dude from the US.

As you may have seen in the Sun Araw / M. Geddes Gengras portion of the interview, the parties involved got together and made some musics — and then the aforementioned dudes went home and made a beautiful record after months of exhausting work. They later returned to The Congos’ home in Jamaica and played the record for them, to everyone’s delight. (No criticism is being leveled here, for in both cases the situation trumped the intentions. Things are kind of funny that way.)

Congo Ashanti Roy assured me that the recording of Icon Give Thank was a harmonious event. I asked him about the mystical nature of the music and how it seems to be a world distinct from those conjured by both Sun Araw and The Congos’ respective back catalogs. He responded by saying simply that The Congos make spiritual music. When we began to talk about past Congos releases like Swinging Bridge and Back tn the Black Ark, he was happy to tell me about working with Lee “Scratch” Perry for the first time since Heart of the Congos. But he had less to say about Icon Give Thank. In fact, he didn’t even know what the record was called (I learned this when I asked him what it meant) or that it had been released. What he did tell me that he was looking forward to The Congos’ show with Sun Araw in London, and that he thought fans of The Congos would like the new album (“The Congos are a very famous band,” he said. “We’re professionals.”)

While I couldn’t help but feel a little special that I got to deliver some news about the record to the man, I felt a little suspicious of the whole enterprise. Had he maybe forgotten? Had he actually not been told? Did he not care? Not for me to say, I guess, as I have little information on the matter. I don’t mean to accuse anyone involved in the project of any sort of dickery, either; both Sun Araw and M. Geddes Gengras seemed utterly authentic in their enthusiasm for the collaboration. Still, the questions…

In any case, Icon Give Thank is awesome. And I should leave this with a note that I am supremely grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with Ashanti Roy. Cliché as it may be, Heart of the Congos changed shit for me, and I let Ashanti Roy know that at the risk of sounding amateurish, because come on, how many chances do we get to talk to the people who impact our lives from afar?

- Troy Micheau, REDEFINE

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
The above sidebar was deeply contested and criticized by the other parties in this interview, for its insinuations and lack of respect for Ashanti Roy as well as the project in general. We attempted shortly thereafter to change some wording, to represent a more sympathetic view on behalf of the American artists, but were then criticized, very appropriately, for not adding an additional note about the fact that we had changed the original article. The piece you now see above is the originally published sidebar, free from changes. It is up to you to decide whether you think the questions we have raised are worthwhile or if they are a journalistic attempt at getting a scoop. We will acknowledge that if we were to be given the chance to write it again, the severity of the article would indeed change. We did not set out with the intention of disrespecting anyone and are deeply apologetic that the parties involved feel disrespected. Nonetheless, while it was certainly not necessary to question the validity of the entire enterprise, the data we received from all perspectives naturally led to such speculation. Whether that speculation was warranted is for you to decide, and we encourage you to look at other articles such as this one from The Fader to decide for yourself. Thank you. - Vivian Hua

Sun Araw & M. Geddes Gengras

Fans might look at your record and think, “Sun Araw’s awesome and The Congos are awesome,” but people who do improvised music know it’s not as easy as two rad people getting together. How was it working with these guys? Did the ideas flow easily or did you have to carve them out? Did you feel that your different backgrounds — artistically, intellectually, spiritually, culturally — work with the process or hinder it?

SUN ARAW: That exact thing, exactly. I don’t know how much you know about the circumstances of us going down there; there wasn’t a lot of information. We really didn’t know the nature of the collaboration either; we thought we might put together a band of people down there… we were open to all possibilities because we really didn’t know; the whole thing came together so quickly. What happened was, very clearly what you said, at that point, in a situation that disparate, culturally, those unifying principles do appear, and that is what appeared. We just met and worked in the way that we work. We made a very conscious decision to just do what we do and not do something else because that seems like a really bad idea, obviously, and we managed to make good and find a connection with them.

M. GEDDES GENGRAS: I think also that those differences kinda made the collaboration what it was. That sort of exact disparity you talk about, in music experience and all these things, kind of led to both us and the Congos reaching to places we wouldn’t normally access as musicians because we were kinda thrown into this situation of having to make a record really fast with people we had never met before in a strange place in a sense, so you can kinda fight all the things that are making it hard or confusing or weird, or you could let it go. We knew that if… we stressed about it and thought about it too much nothing was going to get done, but if we just worked like we are used to working… Cameron and I are both pretty prolific musicians. We work fast, and we work a lot, so we’re used to doing that. I think it was pretty easy for us to get into that rhythm down there and kind of just let the other stuff sort of ride… and knew that as we got to know them, as artists and as people, that that stuff would get worked out.

The film that came with the documentary really makes one feel like one’s in the process with you guys. How did being in Jamaica in general, in The Congos recordings studio, or around all those different people, like the children, the different guys who are hanging out — how did that contribute to the overall feel of the record?

M. GEDDES GENGRAS: In a really practical way, I think the studio shaped the record completely, because we were working with a pretty limited set of resources, and things we would normally have access to, like amplifiers, weren’t there. The sound of the record was really born out of the situation in which we recorded it — plugging everything directly into the desk, which is not a way that Cameron and I would normally record guitars or things like that, so that was an interesting experience. Part of being there and in that space with them was kind of respecting the history and respecting the culture they come from, and really trying to pay tribute to that. It’s everywhere around you; you can see in the movie that [the studio] is covered in Rastafarian imagery, photographs, and posters. Legends of Jamaican music. You’re just kind of sitting there, surrounded by this, and it just kind of sinks into you after a while, how heavy that is and how real that is.

SUN ARAW: The film, I think, is a really accurate depiction I think of what it’s like to just be there. Everything that you experience in that film is obviously what we were going through in every direct way. One thing that I think [Tony] did a really good job of getting were the soundscapes there, because there’s always five or six prominent sort of melodic noises happening at once, including probably three or four different sound systems from different people’s yards, and street noise, and children noise, and nature noise, and all this stuff. It’s just this constant collage; even at night, it’s really loud there, which is not something I expected. But it’s so beautiful. And I think that’s sort of the way that a lot of us are used to hearing anyway — but I think that being there in such an amplified way — because it was so foreign, just the nature of the noise — it kind of created some of the spaces on the record, too. That’s a lot of how I work — disparate thing working together in different ways.

M. GEDDES GENGRAS: With the film, the one criticism from multiple people was that there was not much of a narrative arc, but my response to that is that our trip did not have much of a narrative arc, either. It’s just like, man, that’s what it looked like; that’s what it felt like. There’s just a lot of days where you don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know who these people are that you’re interacting with. For me, it’s the truest reflection of the experience, moreso than the record even, because the record is this construct that we made, whereas the film is a really honest document of being there and what actually happened and how the record came together.

“Everything that you experience in that film is obviously what we were going through in every direct way.” – Cameron Stallones of Sun Araw

Tony Lowe

How did you become involved in this project, and who else was involved in it with you?

I was introduced to Matt Werth (the guru and mastermind behind the project and RVNG Intl / FRKWYS) through filmmaker Sam Fleischner, who ended up shooting the film with me. The project sounded too special to be real, and I really wanted it to be documented in some form. I’d never met Cameron, Ged, or The Congos before, so there were a lot of leaps of faith, but we knew everything was right somehow.

Your filmmaking gives one the sense of actually being there, and Cameron and Ged said to us that they felt your filmmaking was probably more representative of the time spent there than the actual record was. What is the philosophy you take towards filmmaking, in general, and what do you think the vibes that were captured on this particular piece were?

That’s incredible that Cam and Ged said that. That’s beautiful. Films for me are a very, very magical art; they can reach very close to dreams and trance states. I’m very guided by the writings and films of Stan Brakhage, his ideas about “moving visual thinking,” and his sense that film should be as personal as possible. The editing style and pacing of the film aims to conjure to the same rhythm of experience we had – to mirror the reeling, constant awe we all felt during that time, which was both totally at ease and totally overwhelming. Jamaica is a place where music is constantly in the air but so is sound of gunshots and the smell of burning trash… it’s at once the most intense and the most relaxing place.

How do you feel that different artistic, intellectual, spiritual, cultural and economic backgrounds affected the process of filmmaking and the final product?

Everyone from the American camp is deeply spiritual, and The Congos recognized that sensitivity instantly. We found out pretty quickly we weren’t that different in an ultimate sense. Cam/Ged were definitely less accustomed to being filmed than the Congos — at least initially. They were more outwardly self-aware of the cameras. Jamaicans, however, tend to be very outgoing, but there’s a very ingrained history of tourism and exploitation there, especially in regards to Rasta, and I really wanted to avoid that kind of performative interaction. During editing, I found myself really gravitating towards the candid moments.

We had ventured to say to the dudes that the record has a bit of a mystical feel to it, and they had agreed. Do you think the film has any mystical qualities to it or that being in Jamaica and at the Congos headquarters contributed a sacred feel at all?

True Rastafarianism, in the way it is practiced by the Congos, involves a constant sense of spiritual awareness. It was very instructive. They don’t mince words. I certainly wanted the film to pay homage to the mystical focus we all shared during that time — I mean a lot of the footage feels steeped in that feeling — and the film itself is built around a very specific processional structure, like a ritual.

The film definitely captures run-ins with a host of different characters. Are there some stories, anecdotes, or favorite characters you might want to share about?

One man who didn’t make it into the film was Lion Roots, a rootsman (specialist in medicinal herbs and roots) that we purchased a fermented roots tonic from. He rode around the neighborhood on a bicycle selling his medicines. It was the most powerful potion I think any of us have every had; it included herbs like Blood Wiss, Woman Back, Raw Moon, and of course Duppy Gun, which is where Cam and Ged got the name of their new dancehall label.

What kind of timeline was the film shot on, and how much post-production was involved? How long did it take from start to finish?

We were in Jamaica for a little over the week. I sat with the footage for a long time, devising the ritual structure, and then I edited it over the summer in 2011. It took a long time… all told, it was over a year from start to finish.

Were you able to show the Congos the final video project, and if so, what were their thoughts on it?

We all travelled back to the Lion’s Den in December 2011 to play The Congos the mastered record and the film. We watched the movie on the computer in the studio — the computer you see a lot in the film — so it was a bit metaphysical. At first, it was quiet and I wasn’t sure how it was being received, but by the end, the studio was jammed with all the kids, neighbors, etc. It felt like watching home movies. That was the best screening imaginable… it was a very warm feeling.

Do you have any other projects coming up that you might want to pimp?

I’m just now finalizing the physical release of a collage film I made last year called Arabian Drift. It’s about car culture in the Middle East and it’s made up of cell phone footage, YouTube videos and bootleg Islamic DVDs. My production company, Astral Projects, is putting it out. It’s pretty intense.

Sun Araw & M. Geddes Gengras

Did you feel any sense of connecting with that other time, or any sort of responsibility or desire to incorporate traditional reggae or dub elements into this record?

M. GEDDES GENGRAS: We didn’t really have to, because the connection was right there in the room with us. Those guys — working with those four guys — that’s the connection right there. They brought that tradition, and they brought that thing to it, which allowed us to open up and to be even more free and to ourselves, because we knew they would be rooted by these vocals. It’s such a powerful thing. When you hear it, instantly, that recognition is so real — to me, at least, and I think to other people too.

SUN ARAW: Yeah. We both work really intuitively, so we don’t really think about those things when they’re happening at all. But I do think that — I have talked to people about it before, and we both kind of build in ways that are somewhat similar and influenced by the ways of a lot of producers who worked in the ‘70s — but almost out of the same necessity of having limited resources, you know? There’s a lot of things that I sort of do when I record myself — and on this record, too, that are sort of in that mode, but it is only because it was the only thing I could figure out to do with what I had, you know?

Were there any tricks you learned from having limited resources that might stick with you in your regular work?

SUN ARAW: The big challenge there, as Ged said earlier, was that there weren’t a lot of mics, so we were recording directly into the board, which is sort of something that neither of us would ever do, but that’s why the album sounds like it does. And we had two pieces of analog gear that we could run between. This weird limitation because a really explanation for the whole texture of the record which has a pretty unique texture in both of our catalogs; there’s not a lot of stuff we’ve recorded that sounds like that, in particular. The structure is similar, but the sounds are very different.

It doesn’t really sound like it just went into the board, so, good job.

SUN ARAW: Thanks, man. We worked on it a lot. We brought it back to L.A.

M. GEDDES GENGRAS: We made the record in nine days, and we mixed it in six months, so that’s how that goes. We tried to do it ourselves, and we just kind of banged our heads against the wall with it for months. [We] got it to the point where it kind of sounded the way we wanted it to and we were happy with it, [but] we knew there was an extra step we could take… it had been inside our heads for six months, and we wanted someone to take a look at it and help us out with it. So we got this guy, Butchy Fuego, who does recording and mixing stuff in LA. We ended up working with him, and we did two kinda marathon-style sessions where we just finalized the mix of the record. He really took it to the next level and got it ready for release in a way that we just, at that point, certainly were not capable of doing. So much respect to him for putting that gloss on it and kinda getting everything exactly where it needed to be.

I can totally understand spending six months on something and being too close to it to work on it very well.

M. GEDDES GENGRAS: We didn’t even know what it was still at that point. I still think that, in a way, neither of us even know what it is, so it’s kind of nice to put it in front of somebody else and be like, “What do you think this is?” to kind of give you that little extra push.

Did you guys send mixes to the Congos at all? Did they have any input at all on the final mix?

M. GEDDES GENGRAS: We gave them rough mixes right before we left, which kind of had all of the elements in place, but… not a lot of processing had been done. But really, we cut it, brought it home, and they didn’t really hear it again until it was mastered. They trusted us, I guess, and it’s kind of the role between producer and recording artist is kind of different certainly in the traditional reggae industry. The producer has a lot more control. We were sort of left to our own devices to mix it, and we brought it back to them — actually, we were there again this past December, and we all got to sit out in the yard and listen to it together, so they were listening to it for the first time, which was a pretty crazy, nerve-wracking experience, but I think everybody was pretty happy.

Was the second trip back more of a relaxed thing since you weren’t really working and were only really presenting a thing you’d done together?

M. GEDDES GENGRAS: Yeah, it was completely relaxing, pretty much.

I can both hear both of your previous works in the record, but it definitely has more of a, let’s say, mystical quality to it. How do you guys see this fitting into your discographies?

SUN ARAW: I agree there’s a weird quality to the record that’s really hard to put your finger on, because the whole experience was, for us personally, a gateway. The time in my life that it came, the things that I experienced there, and the personal connections to things that I had been experiencing… I don’t know. It’s just something that’s really hard to put your finger on, but it’s in there in a weird way, and it continues to. It was a powerful moment in a lot of people’s lives, and I think it’s going to continue to do that. I think that’s really in the record in a lot of strange ways, because there was no attempt to put it there. It’s just in there because it was evidence of what was actually going down.

M. GEDDES GENGRAS: We were surrounded by so much of this incredible… You talk about the mystic quality to it, and you go there, and that’s everywhere. Like, walking to the store; that’s what the record feels like to me: us walking to the store to buy a bottle of water. That was like everything, and it just couldn’t help but bleed in because we were living there.

A Quick Primer On Rasta

The Rastafari movement, or rasta, is a spiritual movement that grew out of Jamaica in the 1930s. It was first developed among poor Jamaicans, often of African and slave descent, who felt oppressed by society and Western Christianity. Some main tenets of Rastafarian ritual and belief are included below.

- The worshipping of a singular monotheistic God, whom they call Jah (יהּ) — a shortened form of Jehovah found in Psalms 68 (King James Version) of the Bible. Jah is believed to be seen as the Holy Trinity of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and can be found living within every human. The commonly used term “I and I” refers to the Holy Spirit living within all humans, as well as the belief that all human beings are one and the same.

- Rastafari is an Abrahamic faith, grounded in the Old and New Testament, with the belief that Rastas are descendants of the ancient twelve tribes of Israel who have been displaced due to slavery.

- Most adherents of the Rastafari movement worship Haile Selassie I (ኃይለ፡ ሥላሴ – “Power of the Trinity”), the Emperor of Ethiopia who ruled between 1930 and 1973, believing him to be the Second Advent or reincarnation of Jesus. Rastas believe that Selassie will lead the righteous into creating Zion, a perfect world. Zion, to be found in Africa and particularly in Ethiopia, is seen as a land promised by Jah to Rastas. Selassie died in 1975, sparking much debate amongst Rastafarians.

- Ritualistic practices include reasoning — gatherings and discussions conducted under the influences of cannabis — and groundation (“binghi”) holy days — multiple occurrences throughout the year, often aligning with events related to Haile Selassie’s life and Ethiopian history, where feasting, dancing, singing, and the smoking of ganja occur.

- Cannabis is highly important to Rastas, considered a meditative sacrament that cleans the body and mind, heals the soul, exalts the consciousness, facilitates peacefulness, brings pleasure, and brings one closer to Jah. Nonetheless, ganja remains illegal in Jamaica and many places abroad.

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

I and I: A Collective Interview With Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, Tony Lowe & The Congos

The Megaphonic Thrift – Fire Walk With Everyone Music Video (Interview w/ Mona Fastvold)

Vivian Hua — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:11:17 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

The Megaphonic Thrift – Fire Walk With Everyone Music Video (Interview w/ Mona Fastvold)

By focusing in on a simple guitar riff from The Megaphonic Thrift’s David Lynch-inspired track, “Fire Walk With Everyone,” director Mona Fastvold has turned an indie rock track into a setting for occultism, witchcraft, and magick practices. In the interview below, Fastvold expands upon the ideas that a walk over the Williamsburg Bridge crafted together in her mind.

How did the collaboration between you and The Megaphonic Thrift first form?

[The Megaphonic Thrift] got in touch with me after seeing the video I did for Chris Holm’s song “When I Die” (a dark dance/performance-based video of a young woman’s love for her dying horse (Editor’s Note: You can see it embedded at the bottom of this post.) I had only one very specific cult-oriented idea for the song, and luckily, the band liked it.

You had a lot of freedom in composing the visuals for this track. The song is rather upbeat and seemingly cheerful; the women in the music video can be seen as delicate and feminine. Stereotypically “dark” symbols, however, flash into sight occasionally. Why were they chosen for this video, and is there a message to be found in their presence?

It’s really wonderful to be given such freedom in the way you interpret something you are working on. I’m always drawn towards contrast and opposites in my visuals. I felt the song had both a lightness of touch and darkness of mood to it so I wanted to manifest that visually. I added the flashes of animals and anatomic drawings to play tricks on the subconscious in a dramatic and potentially humorous way. I felt it would add energy to the video as the song has this hypnotic drive and delivers constant sonic surprises.

How do you relate to those naturalistic symbols personally? Do you find them fascinating and approachable, distant and creepy, etc.?

I find them creepy and funny which is my favorite combination.

Considering the title, do you know if the track is David Lynch-inspired? If so, did that impact the video concept at all?

Everyone gathered in front of that TV to watch Twin Peaks back in Norway in the early 90s. Quite bizarrely it was sort of a family thing. I think the dark woods and the absurd humor communicated especially well with us. I was way too young and it scared me half to death but because of that I think David Lynch inspires everything I do a little bit. Maybe the band had the same experience?

Religious Inspiration

Video clips that served as inspiration for The Megaphonic Thrift’s “Fire Walk With Everyone” music video.

Was there much research and preparation into the topics portrayed in the video prior to shooting?

When I get asked to do the video for a song, I walk over Williamsburg bridge to Manhattan and listen to it over and over until I have the right images in my head. It’s more like a fragmented dream than a story, usually. I tend to feel like too much narrative disturbs the song more than supporting it. I want to convey or heighten, sometimes contrast, the mood and a feeling of a song, not tell the story — that’s what the lyrics are for. With this one, the guitar riff made me think of ’90s films like The Craft and The Blair Witch Project. That led me to looking for images of women in formations and furthermore, looking at videos of nuns. I became fascinated by the rituals of these Roman Catholic nuns — women who surrender their life and self-control to an unseen force that’s nurtured by their dedication and sacrifice. I was drawn to a clip of a nun getting ready to join the order; the other woman was helping her get ready. There was something fascinating about their quiet joy and held excitement.

Do you or The Megaphonic Thrift have any relationship or interest in occultism or the rituals shown in the music video?

I was raised without any religion so I’m very fascinated by religious rituals. It seems there’s quite a bit of art being made about that nowadays.

Is there anything else you think we should know? Anecdotes or surprises, perhaps?

I always work with the same DP, Zachary Galler; his sense of light and movement is unique. He’s wonderful to work with. We are making our first feature-length film in the fall. We shot the video in Upstate New York in a friend’s house. A very raw and inspiring place.

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

The Megaphonic Thrift – Fire Walk With Everyone Music Video (Interview w/ Mona Fastvold)

Chelsea Wolfe Musician Interview: Shedding Natural Light On Visions Of Doom

Thad McKraken — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:25:24 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Chelsea Wolfe Musician Interview: Shedding Natural Light On Visions Of Doom

If you even remotely keep tabs on the news cycle these days, it’s easy to get bogged down in horrifically menacing thoughts of the world falling apart at the seams. The American military industrial complex has nearly doubled in size over the last decade, and it was already a ridiculously bloated frivolity. We continue to rape the environment for our own selfish expansionary agenda of warped materialism, with little respite in sight. There are no spiritual leaders of any real consequence despite the obvious need. The stupidest people with the least resources continue to have the most children, and their billionaire overseers encourage them to take great pride in their own shameless ignorance. And each time I think I’ve seen the lamest lowest common denominator pop culture moment possible, all I have to do is wait five minutes and something else will creep up knocking my faith in humanity down a few more pegs. It can get worse than Jersey Shore, and does.

What to do, then, with all this bleakness constantly lurking in the outskirts of our collective unconscious?

A true mystic can take even the darkest of human plotlines and shine the impenetrable light of our higher spiritual destiny on them, illuminating the hidden beauty in the seemingly most hopeless of scenarios. Which is where an artist like Chelsea Wolfe excels. She manages to take the unrelenting horror of her apocalyptic dreams and effectively channels it towards transcendent catharsis. I caught up with the enchanting Miss Wolfe recently by e-mail to chat about how exactly she pulls this off so effectively as well as her admiration of Ayn Rand, amongst other things. Read on, true believers.

CHELSEA WOLFE INTERVIEW CONTINUED BELOW
Chelsea Wolfe – “Pale On Pale” (Live on Room 205)

Introducing Objectivism, by Ayn Rand

The following is a short description of Objectivism given by Ayn Rand in 1962. SOURCE

At a sales conference at Random House, preceding the publication of Atlas Shrugged, one of the book salesmen asked me whether I could present the essence of my philosophy while standing on one foot. I did as follows:

1. Metaphysics Objective Reality
2. Epistemology Reason
3. Ethics Self-interest
4. Politics Capitalism

If you want this translated into simple language, it would read:

1. “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” or “Wishing won’t make it so.”
2. “You can’t eat your cake and have it, too.”
3. “Man is an end in himself.”
4. “Give me liberty or give me death.”

If you held these concepts with total consistency, as the base of your convictions, you would have a full philosophical system to guide the course of your life. But to hold them with total consistency—to understand, to define, to prove and to apply them—requires volumes of thought. Which is why philosophy cannot be discussed while standing on one foot—nor while standing on two feet on both sides of every fence. This last is the predominant philosophical position today, particularly in the field of politics.

My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.

2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.

3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.

4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

SOURCE

You’ve been largely inspired by Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged which I find kind of fascinating. That work has recently been closely associated with the Tea Party’s slash-social-program insanity despite the fact that Rand herself was decidedly anti-Ronald Reagan (and Jesus for that matter). I’ve personally never read any of her works except maybe some excerpts in a philosophy class in college so you’ll have to help me out. What would you say it is about her writing that inspires darkly beautiful music in you and selfish asshole psychosis in others?

I think politicians have taken her theories of objectivism and twisted them for their own interest or benefit, just like they do with anything. I am not one of those people who typically looks into the author or painter; I just know what I like and enjoy the book or the painting. Sometimes you learn more about the artist and fall in love, like John Waters, for example. But with people like Ayn Rand or Burzum, I appreciate their work separate from what they may stand for. The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, to me, have a grand vision and idealism that I relate to. She really predicted what society and the workplace would become as well. We exist in a world where extraordinary people are oppressed by systems or a shitty boss with a power trip. The worker-drones are afraid to speak up or do something special for fear that they’ll be called out or fired. Even the sound-ray weapon, Project X, I think there is something like this in existence now.

MORE INFO ABOUT AYN RAND AND OBJECTIVISM >

I’ve made what most people consider fairly dark music, writing, art, etc. for years and as I’ve gotten older and more mentally stable/less of an alcoholic mess, I’ve consciously tried to veer into more uplifting territory. No matter what I try though, it always comes out on the slightly menacing side which perplexed me a bit. On that note, you put forth a fairly black magicky witchcraft kind of vibe with what you do in both look and sound. Where do you think this darkness stems from, if you could put your finger on it?

I wouldn’t consider it black magic or witchcraft, although there is an aesthetic there I can appreciate — that sort of ’60s and ’70s horror movie vibe, I love that. The long white dresses and veils and black flowers; I’m into it. But I’m also into a myriad of other things, from minimalism to flamboyancy, hence my affinities for Maison Martin Margiela and John Waters, respectively. My main inspiration and content source for my music though is the state of the world, on a micro and macro level. If we really open our eyes, we’ll notice poverty cycles, human trafficking, boredom, anger, forgotten humans, animals slaughtered inhumanely in droves, genetically modified monster food, lack of education, nature being destroyed, lethargy, etc., all around us. I’m not saying that’s all there is to life, and that’s why I usually contrast the dark side with something light, whether it’s the vocal melody or a hopeful feeling to the song, but often there is no hope and that’s the frustration that drives many of my songs.

Chelsea Wolfe – “Movie Screen”

I’ve heard you have a lot of intense apocalyptic dreams which largely inspired your last album Apokalypsis. I never gave much thought to the topic until last year when I started receiving invoked transmissions that seemingly want me to think there’s going to be some kind of mass population reduction on our horizon. I’d never taken any of this stuff seriously, 2012 or any of it, until that started happening. I still don’t, but if something did go down, I guess it wouldn’t surprise me and I’d know it was for the greater long-term good. What have you been picking up on? Anything particularly weird or profound? Do you have any sense that, with your music and lyrics, you are preparing yourself for future tribulations? Or are they simply expressions of present situations?

I don’t personally believe that dreams are predictions, but I do know they can provide insight into something that’s already swirling around in your head. I’ve dreamt of nuclear warfare a lot since I was a child, and I’ve dreamt of all of humanity enslaved in rows of chains. I suppose either of those could come true but I’m not particularly stressed about it. Natural disasters and the effect that they have on populations really interests me, and it’s very sad. It’s something that’s inspiring some songs for my new album, especially the earthquake [and] tsunami in Japan. It’s crazy how in this modern age we can watch so much first-hand video footage of these events. It connects me to it in a more intimate way, so I can consider one singular person and how it must feel to lose a loved one to the wave.

You mention that the cover of Apokalypsis symbolically represents a moment of epiphany. Are there any transformative moments of epiphany, in your life as a creative individual, that you would be willing to share with us?

I have pretty bad memory problems, so I lose moments, and think of things on a gradual scale. I’m at a good point in my life and career where I am comfortable with my art and can look back to see the gradual growth that brought me here, but it’s hard for me to remember specific moments or epiphanies. I just know that I used to be almost unable to be onstage or show my music to people without running away. My favorite epiphanies, though, are when you read or watch something, like from Carl Sagan or Werner Herzog or Bill Hicks, and the way they phrase or present something makes so much sense to you, it’s like you’re suddenly filled with white light. It’s the whited-out eyes, it’s meant to represent the moment before the meteor hits. My favorite cinematic epiphany is the end of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia – perfect.

CHELSEA WOLFE INTERVIEW CONTINUED BELOW
Lars Von Trier – Melancholia Theatrical Trailer

You’re a fairly hermitic person by your own description. With that in mind, how did you get into the music business which usually involves a non-stop diet of constant social networking? How do you rectify these roles as a creator/marketer and has it been difficult for you to do things like general publicity functions and odd e-mail interviews with Occult authors (like this one)?

I grew up in a small town in Northern California where it’s easy to take your time, work and hone your sound, but eventually I knew I had to force myself to leave because I am not a very outgoing person and needed to be in a place where I would naturally be exposed to more people interested in art and music. But being an artist in the online era is hard to reconcile. Whenever I go on tour I always want to delete my online presence because I realize firsthand how too-personal it can become. I love my fans so I am happy to be able to connect with them online as well as in person, but sometimes people take liberties when they meet you in person and get really physical with you, wanting to touch you and kiss you, and it’s very sweet and most all of them are so lovely so I don’t mean to sound like a dick here, but that’s just when it gets weird for me because I am such a private person. As for publicity and interviews, being a musician is my job and I love my job so I do what I have to do to get the word out there, and I think it’s better in most cases to have a first-hand account from the artist rather than letting press assume things out of random information they find.

You have a song on your new disc called “Demons.” Do you ever feel any sort of possession encounter or feel like your spirit has been taken over by an outside force while performing or during the writing process? Or have you perhaps experienced any eerily synchronous events fall into place just a little too conveniently ?

Being a religious person during my formative years, that sort of Biblical King James language had permeated my way of thinking, language and the processing of my experiences. Along with memory problems I also struggle with some issues of paranoia, so like, when I’m singing about demons I’m not speaking of literal Biblical demons but actual people; that blurred line between the physical and spiritual, between real and unreal.

You are now working on a new record as well as an acoustic album. What draws you to making an acoustic album? Do you have any concerns regarding the stigmas that some singer-songwriters’ acoustic releases have?

I’m taking care to release the acoustic album as a collection of songs rather than my actual next album. I have so many unreleased acoustic or a cappella songs from over the years that have sort of circulated on YouTube or old compilations and I get a lot of requests for these recordings so upon hearing the idea of an acoustic album from my new label Sargent House, I decided to put together a collection of them. Some will be original recordings and some new songs and recordings too. But I’m most excited about my next full-length, which will most likely be released in early 2013.

After the last album, you’ve mentioned that your upcoming work may shine more light on your personal life. Are there any themes or musical directions you are looking forward to exploring at this point, or any details you might be able to share with us about the next record?

Yes, I think I’ve touched on a few things throughout this interview, including memory, sleep issues, as well as the senses – my experience with migraines and hyperosmia, love, and adoration of the natural world. In my opinion it’s a folk record, but it has elements of rock n’ roll and electronic sounds as well, which I can never fully get away from. Maybe when my hair turns gray someday I’ll make a true folk album.

Chelsea Wolfe – “Mer” Music Video

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNA DOBOS

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Chelsea Wolfe Musician Interview: Shedding Natural Light On Visions Of Doom

Sister Crayon Band Interview: Emerging From Watery Depths, Victorious

Vivian Hua — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:13:42 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Sister Crayon Band Interview: Emerging From Watery Depths, Victorious

Like a whale call bubbling forth from oceanic depths, Sister Crayon’s 2011 release on Manimal Vinyl, Bellow, is an album dense with emotional weight.

“When I think of someone bellowing, I just see a sad, really powerful thing coming out of someone,” explains vocalist Terra Lopez. “Years of an… exhausting type of feeling.”

Bellow is an aural manifestation of such exhaustion — a collective “bellow” from a group of Nothern California musicians who do not shy away from the fascinations which arise from darkness. Filled with trip-hop beats, soaring operatic vocals, distorted guitars, and delicate synth lines, the sonic universe of Sister Crayon is a varied and complex one. What holds consistent, though, is the band’s fortitude, as they explore parallel emotional states through individualized experiences.

Listening Station

Listen to Sister Crayon’s “Arcane”
DOWNLOAD MP3

Full Album Stream: Bellow

Buy + Download Bellow On Bandcamp

Download Sister Crayon’s Covers EP (Free)

See all articles related to Sister Crayon

It Gets Better Project

In September 2010, Dan Savage and his partner, Terry, posted a message on a message on YouTube for LGBT teens everywhere who were facing harassment. The message was simple: “It gets better. However bad it is now, it gets better.” The video was just a small response to a series of bully-induced suicides by LGBT youth.

Since then, The It Gets Better Project has turned into a worldwide movement, inspiring politicians, celebrities, organizations, activists, and personalities alike to submit their own story.

Below is Sister Crayon’s recent contribution to MTV’s It Gets Better special — a reminder to LGBTQ youth that life can and will get better.

Get More: Sister Crayon, MTV Shows

Q&A

Since your music draws from such dark places, do you guys think that music helped you out of a lot of problems?

Terra Lopez: Oh yeah.
Dani Fernandez: The number-one remedy.
Lopez: For me, writing is a form of therapy, because I can’t really afford it, to be honest. There are so many unresolved things, just in life in general, that I’m still trying to process. And the only way to really feel comfortable or okay about it is by singing every night. If we have a tough night or tough day beforehand, I’ll look forward to playing a show because it’s a huge form of some kind of release. And I know for me, if I don’t play a show, I start – if there’s too much of a time period in-between shows, I don’t feel okay; I don’t feel normal. Something’s missing.
Fernandez: It definitely shows, too, when we haven’t been playing music. We just feel that there’s a huge part of us missing, and I feel that we all turn to music to help us from day-to-day. In my own feeling about that is that, it definitely has helped me through every part of my life.

How did the band name come about?

Lopez: I have [synesthesia]. So colors have always meant something really prominent but really promising at the same time… that name came about because at the time, it was just a solo project, and it was really quiet; it was under a different name, which was much more reserved. I knew the music I wanted to make, and it wasn’t what I was doing. so I just thought, you know, I wanna make something more powerful and more intense because that’s how I’m feeling, so I wanna somehow find a way to be able to do that, so Sister Crayon was like an alter-ego. I was like, “So that means bold, so I’m going to have to step it up.” You know what I mean? Be more intense. And then yeah, the band just eventually grew, and finally I was able to make that sound that I was looking for.

“Whether or not it starts with something Terra’s written lyrically, or if it’s just a tone or whatever, we kind of agree on the general… vibe or the mood of the song, and we pour any kind of relative feelings or emotions into our instruments and into our voice or our everything,” says guitarist and keyboardist Jeffrey Letour.

“I think our moods all feed off of each other’s,” keyboardist Dani Fernandez continues. She describes how she and Lopez, long-time friends, have always had a complementary artistic relationship. “If one person is feeling something, we all just kind of do… it determines on how the song is written from that point on.”

Early on in Bellow, Sister Crayon lay the foundations for an album of emotionally turbulent material, with both music and lyrics following suit. On opening track, “I’m Still The Same Person,” Lopez evokes morbid imagery, singing, “She showed me what death was like/ She said: take mine, take mine, take mine, like everyone.” Subsequent tracks like “Here We Never Die” and “(In) Reverse” feel nebulous yet suffocating in their use of restraint, as they seem to describe tense bedroom moments and symbolically holding in one’s own blood. Poetic and mythological, Lopez’s lyrics are quite cryptic, making them applicable for any number of hopeless circumstances. Yet, it is only with her admittance that many of her lyrics are personal confessions — words easier for her to set to music than to discuss openly in day-to-day interactions — that one gains a deeper insight into their actual context.

“[Almost] all of the lyrics are mini-conversations to people [who] I could never really tell [things] face-to-face,” Lopez explains, “so the song’s going to be what I really want to tell you, though I may never tell you this was written for you.”

“We just focused and put all of our worries, frustrations, confusions, sadness into [music]… and whatever that outlet is for you — whether it be music, arts, writing, whatever it is — just try to focus on that and become a better person through that frustration.”
- Terra Lopez

“Here We Never Die,” for example, was written for Lopez’s former girlfriend, as a passive way for Lopez to declare her love and express the sentiment, “Here is our little universe, [in] this 3-minute song.” “Anti-Psalm,” likewise, was written to her father to covertly express the disdain they have for one another. It contains just a few of the many religious and spiritual references on Bellow, and is partially telling of Lopez’s fascinating relationship to religion.

“I grew up in two completely different households,” she explains. “One household was my mother’s, which was very free when it came to religion; and [one was] my father’s, [who was] a Jehovah’s Witness, so it was very strict, very rigid… I grew up conflicted about religion, in general, and not wanting to believe in any of it. As I’m getting older, that’s why I reference it a lot in lyrics, because I want to believe in a religion or in a spiritual realm, but I’m not quite sure what to believe in yet, so I’m just trying to dissect it and write about it; I’m still looking for it, I guess.”

A sense of oneness — of the almost psychically-bonded type that grows out of sharing a band and a living space — allows for the members of Sister Crayon to feel their way into their sound with ease. Their songwriting process is what they would describe as organic and natural.

“The rawness of those emotions or feelings is something that we don’t always need to think about; it’s just always something that happens,” Letour adds. “There’s a connection; it’s chemistry, and it’s happening individually [and] those things are all shared in a melting pot of everyday life,” Letour shares. “Because we experience it together, we pull ourselves out of it together. So even if it’s something very dark and intense, we can all go to that spot together and rise out of it.”

It is a special and long-standing relationship, of viewing creation as a healing mechanism, that allows for the members of Sister Crayon to understand one another on a deeper level than words. Thanks to music, every member has found a way to express, understand, and sometimes transcend life’s most intense and difficult experiences. To continue the cycle, they encourage others who feel lost in their own skins to find their own paths towards satisfaction.

“The way that [Dani and I] got through [being bullied in high school], was we found an outlet — which was music,” Lopez explans in an interview with MTV for the It Gets Better Project. “We just focused and put all of our worries, frustrations, confusions, sadness into it… and whatever that outlet is for you — whether it be music, arts, writing, whatever it is — just try to focus on that and become a better person through that frustration.”

Bellow is just the beginning of Sister Crayon’s journey as a band.

“There’s a story for each song that kind of builds the premise for what Bellow is,” Lopez explains. “It’s a cool introduction to the band. For the next record, it will be more thorough.”

“We are very passionate people with a lot of ideas and opinions so we would love to become more involved in the future in the various issues that we believe in. Dani and I have worked in the past for the Marriage Equality initiative in our hometown of Sacramento. All of the members of this band fully support Human Rights, Gay Rights, Marriage Equality, etc. We would love to become more involved in this issue as there is still a long way to go not only for individuals in the United States but all over the world.”
– Terra Lopez

www.sistercrayon.com

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Sister Crayon Band Interview: Emerging From Watery Depths, Victorious

OM Announces New Record, Advaitic Songs + mewithoutYou Track Premiere, “February 1878″, From Forthcoming Ten Stories

Admin — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 18:18:58 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

OM Announces New Record, Advaitic Songs + mewithoutYou Track Premiere, “February 1878″, From Forthcoming Ten Stories

mewithoutYou and OM are vastly different bands, but both of their releases have centered heavily on their own relationships to religion and spirituality. This post takes a slight peek into their pasts and what you can expect from their upcoming releases this fall and summer. Influences from Islam and Christianity abound on OM’s upcoming Advaitic Songs and mewithoutYou’s upcoming Ten Stories.

OM

The doom metal duo OM, consisting of Sleep’s Al Cisneros and Grails‘ Emil Amos, are back for slow-motion headbanging and meditation bliss with their upcoming record, Advaitic Songs. The Drag City release comes out this July 24th and is the follow-up to their 2009 release, God Is Good.

ADVAITIC SONGS TRACKLISTING
Addis
State Of Non-Return
Gethsemane
Sinai
Haqq al-Yaqin

There are few cues and clues released into the album thus far, but some cursory research into the song titles provide some (predictable) context: Gethsemane is the place where Jesus and his disciples are said to have prayed the night before Jesus’ crucifixion, and Haqq al-Yaqin is a term in Sufi doctrines that represents a “reality of certainty” — or the unveiling of the vision of God that will be released after one departs from the world.

The upbeat and enthusiastic press release from Drag City provides some equally far-out context (and some more earthly and concrete hints into the album’s musical style):

We live in a world of non-duality. Things that seem separate, though distinct, are actually connected, as one, with the universe. We’re set to release the new album from OM, Advaitic Songs, this coming July. Advaitic Songs is distinct from, yet linked with, 2009′s God Is Good – while it maintains the singularity of purpose that informs the core sound of OM, every element of Advaitic Songs reaches further than before – it’s the band’s most focused, expansive, and imaginative document to date! We could tell you more about its awesomeness, and we will – but what we have already said is all we’re going to introduce into this time we call the present. At least, the present as you know it; Drag City being a canine with an astral sense of smell, our present includes the future and the past. Holding back on aspects of the future is a holy thing for the likes of us record-label people!

OM is now on tour in Europe. See full European tour dates here.

mewithoutYou

After a long hiatus from music, mewithoutYou have gone from being an openly Christian band to a spiritual band with a Christian backing — to a band that might be religious but certainly no longer focus on religion as much as they once did.

Their upcoming record, Ten Stories, captures, according to their press release, “the band’s favorite themes of romantic disaster and quasi-mystical speculation, offering up a collection of allegorical songs about a circus train crash in 19th century Montana. Through the fable-like interactions of fictitious animals, the songs offer up deep ponderings about human character flaws and the circle of life.”

Ten Stories will be released May 15th on the band’s own label, Pine Street. They go on tour starting May 17th, with Buried Beds and Imaginary Cities.

See our interview with mewithoutYou about spirituality, Christianity, and Sufism

MEWITHOUTYOU TOUR DATES
w/ Buried Beds and Imaginary Cities
5/17 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
5/18 – Charlotte, NC @ Amos’ Southend
5/19 – Columbia, SC @ New Brookland Tavern
5/21 – Birmingham, AL @ WorkPlay Theatre
5/22 – Nashville, TN @ Rocketown
5/24 – Oklahoma City, OK @ ACM@UCO
5/25 – San Antonio, TX @ White Rabbit
5/26 – Dallas, TX @ The Door
5/28 – Little Rock, AR @ Downtown Music Hall
5/29 – Springfield, MO @ Outland Ballroom
5/30 – Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room
6/1 – Columbia, MO @ Blue Note
6/2 – Iowa City, IA @ Blue Moose Tap House
6/4 – Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock
6/5 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall Ballroom
6/6 – Indianapolis, IN @ Deluxe at Old National Centre
6/7 – Cincinnati, OH @ 20th Century Theatre
6/8 – Lansing, MI @ The Loft at Harem Urban Lounge
6/9 – Toronto, ON @ The Mod Club
6/11 – Rochester, NY @ Water Street Music Hall
6/12 – So. Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground
6/13 – Northampton, MA @ Pearl Street
6/14 – Pawtucket, RI @ The Met
6/15 – Hoboken, NJ @ Maxwell’s
6/16 – Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

OM Announces New Record, Advaitic Songs + mewithoutYou Track Premiere, “February 1878″, From Forthcoming Ten Stories

Sacrilege – A Dark, Religion-Themed Group Show

Vivian Hua — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 19:27:33 +0000

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Sacrilege – A Dark, Religion-Themed Group Show

Los Angeles’ Congregation Gallery has coordinated a host of artists to create works around the topic of dark religion. Many Seattle artists showed their works, including Don Farrell, Jethaniel Peterka, and Yvette Endrijautski. You can see some of the pieces, along with notes on why they were created, below.

Don Farrell

In The Light Of The World, Don Farrell has replaced a saintly form with what look liks Islamic geometries and goat-headed divinity. Says Farrell about his work:

“I wield symbols, myths, and visions intuited in my life’s journey to bring viewers to a place before powerlessness and cynicism. I hope that my art encourages you, not only to Think, but more importantly, to Feel, to Love.

The fire of the gods, burning bright – its warmth emanates from the parted palms of the open-hearted. With promethean pleasure, I open the door for all to see their Divinity, to claim their rightful crown.

Every Man and Woman is a Star; Do what thou wilt.”

Cory Benhatzel

Cory Benhatzel‘s symmetrical Satanica Naturalis expresses Satanism in its dualities, with Theistic Satanism to the left and Atheistic Satanism towards the right. Its soft color palette echoes the sentiment that Satanism is not all about blacks and reds, but about the content associated it rather than strictly the aesthetics. To comment more on the matter, she says,

“I think that all organized religion is inherently wrong, but I wanted this piece to make people think twice about Satanism; if they know nothing about it, it is worth investigating and aspects of it can actually be quite beautiful. It’s never wise to stay in a state of blind ignorance; it’s better to find out the facts and then judge for yourself, not just believe what others tell you.

The ravens are flanked by narcissus, a flower that in Floriography (Victorian flower language) stood for egotism, self-love, and self-esteem. This idea of putting yourself first is an important aspect of Satanism. The birds are also holding onto several branches of pussy willows, which form the shape of an inverted pentagram. In Floriography pussy willows hold a similar significance, that of freedom.”

See more of her comments on the painting, along with progress shots, HERE.

Scott Holloway

Scott Holloway presents a series of minimal, gold-leaf encusted macro paintings of ritualistic elements (such as Hand I and Saint II, below).

Other additional images by more than a dozen artists can be seen on the Congregation Gallery website.

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine

Sacrilege – A Dark, Religion-Themed Group Show

music art film review - REDEFINE magazine » religion

Barn Owl Band Interview: A Bilateral Reflection On Meditative States

Jon Porras

Evan Caminiti

Barn Owl

Related Concept: Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening Philosophy

Barn Owl Band Interview (cont’d)

Listening Station: Barn Owl Through The Years

Listening Station: Meditative Inspiration

Midday Veil – Great Cold of the Night Music Video (w/ Director & Musician Interviews)

On The Technical & Artistic Side Of Things

On The Spiritual & Conceptual Side of Things

Christopher Mir Makes Chicken Scratch Enticing.

Mystical & Spiritual Ideas in Modern Music: REDEFINE magazine’s SXSW 2013 Panel Pitch

I and I: A Collective Interview With Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, Tony Lowe & The Congos

Sun Araw

M. Geddes Gengras

The Congos

Ashanti Roy Of The Congos

Sun Araw & M. Geddes Gengras

Tony Lowe

Sun Araw & M. Geddes Gengras

A Quick Primer On Rasta

The Megaphonic Thrift – Fire Walk With Everyone Music Video (Interview w/ Mona Fastvold)

Religious Inspiration

Chelsea Wolfe Musician Interview: Shedding Natural Light On Visions Of Doom

Introducing Objectivism, by Ayn Rand

Sister Crayon Band Interview: Emerging From Watery Depths, Victorious

Listening Station

Full Album Stream: Bellow

It Gets Better Project

Q&A

www.sistercrayon.com

OM Announces New Record, Advaitic Songs + mewithoutYou Track Premiere, “February 1878″, From Forthcoming Ten Stories

OM

mewithoutYou

Sacrilege – A Dark, Religion-Themed Group Show

Don Farrell

Cory Benhatzel

Scott Holloway

On The Technical &
Artistic Side Of Things

On The Spiritual &
Conceptual Side of Things